SA : When Speaking Up Feels Like a Crime

2018, Perlis.

That was the year & place where a part of 16 year old me was taken without my consent. But what broke me even more wasn’t just the act itself, it was everything that came after.

I admit, I didn’t tell my story the “right” way. I didn’t sit someone down in private, choose my words carefully, or build up a case before speaking. I couldn’t. Fear doesn’t give you time to think, and pain doesn’t wait for the perfect moment. I was drowning, and I did the only thing I knew, I spoke. Randomly. To a friend I trusted.

And that was my biggest mistake.

Not what happened to me. Not the trauma I carried. But the fact that I dared to say it out loud.

"You’re lying."

"You’re making things up."

"You’re ruining someone’s reputation."

But what about mine? What about my dignity, my truth?

The mentors who once guided me, the people who preached about justice, the girls I thought would protect me, they all turned their backs. Not because they didn’t believe in justice, but because the truth was too inconvenient.

Because the person I spoke about wasn’t just anybody, he was someone they respected. Someone they called an “ustaz.”

But just because a man wears the title of an ustaz, just because he speaks like one, acts like one, doesn’t mean the devil isn’t hiding behind his words.

I was made to feel like I was the one who had done something wrong. That by speaking up, I had committed a crime greater than the one done to me. I became the girl people whispered about in among them, the girl whose name was dragged through the dirt, not because of what happened to me, but because I refused to stay silent & dared to speak.

For years, I carried their betrayal, their silence, their accusations. But I wont to let them bury my truth.

If I ever get the chance to reopen this case, I will. If not in this world, then in the Hereafter. Because justice is not something time can erase. May the truth one day find its voice, even when the world tries to silence it.